they don't give trophies for this, you know
by Aya-kun Rose
Summary: Barry requires medical attention one morning. He's not quick to say why.


"You should see the other guy," Barry drawls thickly, blood from his broken nose seeping over the back of his glove.

Caitlin immediately drops her bag in the entryway of the Cortex, effectively barricading Wells in the corridor until he can navigate his chair around the obstacle, and flies across the open room - probably setting a land speed record for heels and a pencil skirt in the process.

"Oh, Barry!" she cries, dismayed and frightened and more than a little peeved, "Barry, what happened to you? Don't tell me you took on some meta-human on your own."

He sways when she reaches him, lets her walk him over to the rail behind the center console computers. He hunches over it and squints up at her, fingers shaking as she pries his hand away from his busted face. His cowl's down, bunched up around his neck, and his hair's wild with sweat and blood. "Ok, I won't."

"It's too early in the morning for pointless machismo, Mr. Allen," Wells snips, wheeling around the desk to park on Barry's other side. Barry twists to answer him, but Caitlin's sharp slap on his shoulder brings his attention back to his attending medic.

Barry's protest turns to a yelp of pain as she starts prodding her fingers into the soft swollen contours of his face. "It's like you ran into Girder 2.0," she admonishes, bedside manner quickly tipping this side of clinical, "How do your teeth feel?"

Wells is digging one end of his glasses frame into the furrows of his brow. "What _did_ you run into, Barry? Chances are whoever - or whatever - it was will want a rematch, hm? You can't expect us to slap a band-aid on you and send you back out for round two-"

"It was my nemesis," Barry cuts him off. Caitlin responds with a quiet gasp, Wells with a wince.

"The Reverse-Flash?" Caitlin whispers as though naming He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. She can't stop herself from scanning the lab, ready to jump out of her skin at the sight of the man in yellow lurking in some corner.

But there's only Wells, who waves a hand dismissively. "No. The Reverse-Flash wouldn't let him go with only a broken nose. However I will admit this doesn't resemble Snart's _modus operandi_ , either."

Caitlin and Wells cock their heads at each other over Barry's shoulder for a moment, trying to drum up rogues who are only semi-lethal and, more importantly, not locked up downstairs.

Barry sighs. " _One of_ my nemesises. Nemesi." ("Nemeses," Wells asides to Caitlin, just for the record.) He curls both fists over the rail and bends meekly over it, hiding his face from them as he admits: "Gravity."

"Gravity?" Caitlin repeats, turning the word over in her head. "Are they naming themselves again? Forgive me for saying so, but that's kind of underwhelming compared to what Cisco normally comes up with."

But Wells' smirk is politely constrained. "I believe, Dr. Snow, that poor Barry is referring not to a new meta-human threat but to the much more familiar force of nature - is that right Mr. Allen?"

"I fell out of a tree," Barry groans to the railing.

Caitlin bites her lip against the doleful look Barry sends her way, that complete " _feel sorry for me_ " look that only a guy with two black eyes can give. Wells, on the other hand, seems to have left his empathy at the door with Caitlin's bag.

"Barry, you fell out of a tree."

"Yeah."

"Fell out of-"

"A tree. Yes."

Wells folds his hands neatly in his lap and fixes Barry with a clear, curious stare. "The Barry Allen I know can catch bullets with his bare hands and can run up the side of forty-story buildings without a second thought. How does this Barry Allen - who is, may I remind you, _the Flash_ \- also find himself capable of something so human as falling flat on his face?"

" _Doctor Wells_ ," Caitlin's best icy glare cuts over Barry's back, the same back she's quick to soothe with a warm pat, some of her bedside manner having returned.

It doesn't phase him. "Forgive me for being indelicate, Barry, I imagine this must be a very humbling experience for you."

"Doctor Wells! Shush!" It's the strictest tone she's ever taken with the man, and this time he acknowledges it with an apologetic raise of hands. Caitlin eyes him for a second, warning off any further jibes, before tucking her hair behind her ear and leaning forward to draw Barry back to them with an encouraging hand under his elbow.

"Looks like the swelling's going down already," she says, brightly, as Barry turns to face the room, blinking his puffy eyes against the lab lighting. "Gravity: one; super-healing: . . . also one, I guess. At least you came out even."

Barry shrugs in agreement, gingerly pressing his fingertips around the area he knows his nose to be. Wells and Caitlin share another brief nonverbal conversation, he jutting his chin forward and raising his eyebrows, she responding with a lift of her shoulders and a frown of bewilderment, to which he replies, "Alright. I'll ask it. What exactly were you doing in a tree?"

Barry winces once at the question and then again at having moved his battered face in such a manner. He takes a long, slow breath and lets it out in a gust, one fist curling at his hip, his other hand raking through his matted hair.

"I was trying to rescue a kitten, alright?"

No amount of lip biting can hide Caitlin's snort, and even Wells is moved to an artless bark of a chuckle.

"It's not funny, guys," Barry frowns, pointing to his broken nose as Exhibit A. "I ran up there and I startled it and it startled me and I fell, okay, end of story. Can we never mention this again, please."

Caitlin removes her hand from her mouth to wave him to a stop. "Wait. Are you telling me that you just left it up there? Barry, did you lose a fight to a helpless kitten?"

"The one and only Flash, ladies and gentlemen," Wells applauds. The accompanying slow clap is scathingly redundant.

"Okay, okay," Barry pleads, turning his best " _I broke my face and everyone is mean_ " look on Caitlin, "It's the lamest thing to happen to any superhero in the history of superheroes, I get it. What do I need to do to get you guys to never tell Cisco about this?"

It's a photo finish but let the record show Caitlin beat Wells to it:

"Dibs!"


End file.
